Faculty of Animation, Arts and Design

Launched in 2012, the Temporary Contemporary program is an annual installation of a contemporary artwork on one of Sheridan’s campuses. The program offers an opportunity for creators to incubate and implement new ideas through exchange with Sheridan’s vibrant interdisciplinary community.

Nitsiit, which means “hooks” in Inuktituk, is an installation of large-scale fishing lure sculptures that reference traditional and historical Inuit production. Artist Couzyn van Heuvelen worked with students and technicians at Sheridan’s Oakville campus over the fall semester to develop the sculptures in the Faculty of Animation, Art & Design’s workshops. He explains that he “was interested in exploring the rapid prototyping technologies at Sheridan, as using newer manufacturing processes to create work that references traditional Inuit technologies will allow these objects to be seen from a fresh, modern perspective.” The moulds for the cast metal sculptures as well as the wood and ceramic lures were all created at Sheridan.

The 2017-18 Temporary Contemporary program is presented by Sheridan in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM).

This museum of stopped personal analog timepieces simultaneously functions as a working digital public clock. The 720 watches are each stopped at a different minute, and they collectively display all the possible hour and minute combinations of a 12-hour clock. Each watch is held in an individually-lit compartment, and the lights are digitally controlled so that only the watch showing the current time is lit. The display case is 60 columns/minutes wide and 12 rows/hours high.

A cooling tower on the roof above the main entrance has been fitted with a one-storey tall segmented clock display, transforming it into a clock tower of sorts for the Sheridan College campus. Unlike most campus clocks, this one has been set 24 hours fast, always displaying “tomorrow’s time.” Of course, on a four-numeral digital clock, tomorrow’s time appears indistinguishable from “today’s time,” and therein lies a small bit of levity that is intended to open up a range of poetic interpretations.

A clock tower running 24 hours fast is in fact practical and functional in the present, but serves also as an aspirational signpost pointing towards the idea of tomorrow. This clock has in part been modelled on a stunning modernist clock tower that overlooked Toronto’s Exhibition Grounds between 1954 and 1986. It was considered cutting-edge and futuristic in its day. (image below.) A Clock Set To 24 Hours Into The Future also recalls the past, insofar as it conjures a romantic image of the traditional campus clock tower, which appears surprisingly often in literature, poetry, and admissions brochures for many other schools. For institutions older than Sheridan, one imagines an idealized pillar of ivy and stone, with students discoursing at the bottom. “Meet me by the clock tower” sounds lovely, yet there is a melancholy hint of anachronism to the phrase. After all, most of Sheridan’s students have a very accurate clock integrated into their phones, unlike their counterparts in the 18th or 19th century who relied on a communal timepiece to get to class punctually. This installation takes account of that obsolescence while still serving the community in other, less horological ways. Visible from kilometres away, it serves as a landmark and wayfinding aid to locate the main entrance. A didactic panel with title information has been positioned at the base.

Dopplekopf, which is German for “double headed”, is a site specific installation that transforms a pair of vitrines into mirror images of each other. A group of objects are arranged, copied, reversed, and reflected in various shades of gray. The symmetrical arrangement of the objects in these two vitrines prompts viewers to assume that both vitrines are identical. Closer inspection reveals surprising differences as well as optical super-impositions that are unexpected and disorienting.

Endless Kiosk recreates Constantin Brancusi’s Endless Column as a site for commercial advertising. Brancusi imagined his column as a modular structure that could potentially grow to monumental height. Sullivan invites visitors to use his variation as a site for posters, paper and advertisements. In principle Sullivan’s kiosk will grow endlessly in girth to complement the possibility of its endless height.